Keep Breathing
by grendels
Summary: It almost makes her whole. /AlecxIsabelle, post-CoG/


She sits on the edge of the bed, blinking, hollow and dreamlike. Her room swims before her eyes, (seethecolorsseethecolors) all the black and pink melding together to make some color she can't name. The black is alright but the pink, the pink burns her eyes, sears her brain till all she can see when she closes her eyes is pinkpinkpink (andalecjustalec.)

Noises swim in her ears, war noises, loud noises and the sound of death. She whimpers, out into the empty open air that's stale and hard because she hasn't opened her door since Monday. The air acts like an absorbent, like a sponge and it swallows her cries right up and takes them to Max and he listens to them and shakes his head. (shekilledmeit'sstillnotenoughit'sneverenough) And then Max is in with the war sounds, screaming in her ear and she wants to scream back but he'll never hear her because the air swallows it up. Mom hears her screaming and knocks on the door (isabellehoneypleaseopenup) but the door is locked and only Alec can open it but Alec's never coming back so it'll stay locked forever and ever and ever and she'll rot here in this empty, empty air, suffocated by the words Max will never hear and she never wants to speak again, not if she can't tell Max how sorry she is (godohgodpleasepleasepleaseforgivelittlebrothernotmyfaultnotmyfaulforgiveforgivei'msorrysorrysorry.)

Sorry is the only word she can say anymore. (andalecmaybeifhecameback)(teachherhowtotalkagain) and it's everywhere. Dad asks her to read something aloud and there are millions of different letters but all they spell out is sorry and she tries to stutter out her own name and that's sorry too, everything is sorry. The air is sorry and it sticks in her throat, kills her slowly and she wants Max back, wants to rewind Idris and go back to the days she could breathe. It's been so long since she's took a breath. She's forgotten what air tastes like.

.X.

It's been forty-seven days since they came back from Idris. It's been forty-seven days since Isabelle took one look at Max's room and went pale white. It's been forty-seven days since his sister started wailing like a banshee, her hands clasped to her mouth and her pupils so big that her eyes looked completely black.

Mental trauma, the doctors told them. She'll never be the same again. The doctor said that it was a grief-related mental injury. She needs therapy, but how can she get help when she can't even remember what her own name is?

There are good days and there are bad days and on the good days she'll talk a total of fifteen sentences, her tiny red mouth pulled down into a permanent frown and on the bad days, she screams her head off in her room. She screams one word over and over again (SORRYSORRYSORRY) and he can't fucking take it. He can't take his sister like this, can't take seeing her drift away, in and out of the limbo between the good and the bad days, in and out of whatever's left in her mind but it's all Max now. He used to be her favorite brother. He thinks he still is, but Max is the one who's always on her mind. (I can't get him out.) she told him the night before he left. (Please get him out for me, Alec, please.) He snapped. He wasn't going to let himself sit there, waves of desperation coming off of him so thick that it could probably choke someone, talking to a sister who couldn't even hear him.

Forty-seven days isn't enough (nothing is enough) to erase from his mind the look she got in her eye when he told her he was leaving.

.X.

Jace finds her in the library.

"Isabelle?" he says softly, touching her shoulder. She cocks her head up a bit, her eyes still on the page she is reading, but her head turned towards him to indicate that she knows he's there. "It's me. It's Jace." Her eyebrows furrow and her shoulders slump and she blinks once, twice, before turning up to meet his eyes.

He can hardly recognize her. She keeps her hair brushed and her face clean (granted, with a substantially less amount of makeup then before), but there's something different. Her cheekbones jut against her skin; her eyes no longer hold that sparkle that they did. He doesn't know what Sebastian did to her, but it must have been pretty damn bad. Almost nothing can stop Isabelle from sparkling. Jace wants to hold her, to press her to his chest and kiss her head and then maybe, maybe, she'll come back to them.

He does. He sits down next to her on the couch and pulls her to him, breathing in the smell of her perfume and her hair and he puts his forehead to hers, as though that'll make all his memories transfer into her. He might have some pretty bad memories, but lots of good ones and a few bad are better than not having any memory at all.

She falls asleep on him, snoring softly as she nestles against his shoulder. He's afraid to move, she rarely sleeps peacefully these days and any rest is worth saving.

They haven't been there more than two hours when who else but Alec walks through the library door. "Hey." He murmurs, his eyes flitting from Jace to his sister and then back to Jace. Jace should be furious. He should launch himself at Alec right this second and tear his goddamn eyes out. Bastard. Leaving them all here to deal with Isabelle when he knew (he knows) that he's the only one she understands anymore. Jace should kill him. But he doesn't. He doesn't have enough energy left to do that. All he does is sigh and say-

"Well, she'll be damn glad you're here."

.X.

Isabelle's room is hot as hell; the air is stagnant and thick. Her blinds are closed, her bed is unmade and a thin layer of dust seems to cover everything that she didn't have to touch to leave the room. What has she been doing in the time he's been gone? He carried her up from the library and he was slightly alarmed how light she was. Like her bones had no center.

"Alec?" she mumbles, her fingers clutching at the fabric of his sweater. "alecisthatyou?" One eye peels open, the brown iris flickering up to search his face. A smile cracks her features.

"You came home, Alec." He nods and sets her down on the comforter. Her fingers still cling to his chest. "For me?"

"For you, Izzy." This is why he left. He can't see her like this, all birdlike and cold and empty. There's a person, a soul behind her eyes but it's not the soul he wants, not his Isabelle. He wants _his_ Isabelle back, not this dreamy, off kilter version of his sister. But he can't leave, not again. Walking through the cathedral doors with her crying and still reaching for his hand, he can't take going through that. It fractured him the first time. If there ever was a second, he's sure he'd break.

A grin (the old Isabelle grin. Maybe she's come back for a bit.) appears and he's filled with the overwhelming urge to lie next to her, to pull her close and listen to her heart beat. Just to be reassured that she's still there.

.X.

He came back. He came back to teach her how to talk, he came back to bring _her_ back (backfromwhat?) upoutinto the light. The bed creaks as he straightens out and lies down next to her, flat as a board, arms at his sides. (whyishesonervous?) Time ticks past her, floating past her eyes as she stares at him and he stares back .She's forgotten how she can drown in the color of his irises. (alakethelakeidrismax-no.)

"I've missed you." She tells him quietly, threading her fingers through his. He smiles (suchaprettysmile), presses his forehead against hers, just like Jace did. Only it feels better then when Jace did it, it almost makes her whole. Alec's smile falters a bit when she moves closer, hip to hip with him but the air around Alec is clean, easy to breathe, doesn't choke her up when she inhales.

"Isabelle." He says her name like he's afraid to break it (breakher) and she loves that, loves that she's not invincible in Alec's eyes, never has been. "Are you okay?" His fingertips brush her face and, up this close, she can see the flecks of grey in his eyes, the barely-there freckles on his nose, the Rune scars that curl up his neck. She reaches up, traces one of them (can'trememberthename)(can'trememberwhatitdoes) that she recognizes from her own body. It's right at her hip, curling over the bone and continuing up her torso. Alec flinches when her fingers touch his skin, like he's surprised, but he lets her do it anyway.

"I'm fine." She reassures him. Alec's heart is quite loud. It's beating underneath his skin and clothes and bone and she can hear it, thudding away frantically. "Are _you_ okay?" He pauses to lick his lips and then nods.

"Of course."

.X.

Being in bed with Isabelle was never this nerve-wracking before.

They used to sleep in the same bed all the time, back before Jace. It was never weird or awkward or anything at all. It was just them and that was fine. Even when Jace came to stay, Isabelle would still wander into his rooms some nights when she couldn't sleep and curl up against him, and vice versa. He and his sister are best friends, they did everything together. He remembers Isabelle punching him in the gut when he was eight and then leaning down and kissing him on the mouth because she "knew he wouldn't let her do it unless he couldn't defend himself"

But suddenly, now, all grown up, it's not as easy. Nothing ever is.

Isabelle pulls herself closer, so that they're touching all along the length of their bodies and presses into him. Every muscle in his body tightens like a coil, the way they do when a demon rears on him. His breathing rattles in his chest, like there's something stuck in his throat and he's afraid to move. She's almost as tall as him, her head fitting perfectly in the crook of his shoulder. "Thank you so much for coming home." Her lips brush his cheek, almost like she's kissing him and- ohfuck. Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck. This was not happening. This was _not_ happening. Nonoabsolutlynotno(yesithappened).

He just got hard for his sister.

.X.

She notices at the same time he does.

Blush spreads across her cheeks and she now knows for a fact that the old Isabelle isn't all gone because that impulsive little brat inside her started up again and she's kissing him and he's kissing her and shit, s_he's kissing her brother. _(andnotpullingaway.) The thoughts flick through her head like static and she wishes she could grab just one and then maybe she could find the willpower to stop but she's moving now, gathering up momentum, flying along.

Alec starts to protest, his hands pushing against her chest and his mouth fumbling as he shakes his head and just keeps repeating "no." Her hands, almost like they have a mind of their own, drift down between his legs and cut him off with a grip. (shestillremembershowtodothis)

She can feel herself smiling when he lets out a sharp gasp and his lids flutter, his eyes rolling up to the whites.

.X.

He's a sick bastard.

He should be walking (god not walking, running) out of this room, stumbling away, avoiding conflict the way he always does but, no, instead he's seemed to have completely lost his mind because Isabelle's fingers are threading their way through his hair, pressing into his scalp and making him shudder from the pressure. He can't even fucking think, much less make some high moral choice that getting out of this situation would require and (angelhe'smessed) while his brain is silently going into a panic attack, his heart has the intention of keeping him right here (To be fair, other parts of his body aren't particular jumping to leave either.)

Isabelle pulls away and reaches under his sweater, pulling it off in one swift motion and its then that reality begins to catch up with him and he realizes _exactly_ what is going on.

"Oh god, Isabelle, no we-we can't." he moves away from her, mustering up all his willpower to get up off the bed because he's an adult and he has to do the adult thing and walk away from this.

"C'mon, Alec." She prods, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him towards her again. "Let's." Just that one word. But he knew exactly what she was talking about. He shakes his head again.

"No, nononono I can't Isabelle, I can't."

"You know you want to."

"I don't."

"You do."

(Hedid.)

.X.

A long time ago, back from before, she wouldn't have wanted this (him) at all. There were unspoken rules, little taboos that were never really explained to her but she learned dutifully all the same. One of those was that you can't want to have sex with your brother. Only she did, she had for a very long time and now that he wasn't pulling away, rules be damned, she's making this happen.

Everything's so much clearer in her head when Alec's near her. The words come in linear, uniform lines the way they used to and she can read them and speak and know.

It's been a while since she's really truly known something.

Alec presses his head to her shoulder and won't look at her as he comes, gasping and moaning and shuddering. Just to get back at him, she whispers his name as many times as possible, just to make him mad. He doesn't want to be reminded that she's there because it makes him look at what he's doing. She's going to make him remember exactly who she is, she won't let him escape inside his head.

But he can always just keep pretending. Because he's a Lightwood, and pretending is what Lightwoods do best.

.X.

He doesn't have any clothes on.

That's the first thing that registers in Jace's as stands in the doorway of Isabelle's room. Aside from his boxers, Alec has no clothes on. Shit. This isn't good. Alec's head jerks up, sensing Jace's presence and immediately, crushed whispers start pouring out, the words tripping over themselves to get a place in the air.

"ohgoditwasn'tmewasn'tmejaceisweariswear." He stutters, getting up and stumbling to stand in the corner of the room, as though he couldn't even stand sitting next to Isabelle. "sheaskedmetoshebeggedandicouldn'tsaynoshe'smysisterohgodmysister."Alec is whispering frantically now, slowly and slowly getting more and more hysterical. The gears slowly start turning as Jace realizes what happened. He watches as Alec pulls at the ends of his own hair and bites down on his knuckle, an old habit from when he was a kid. "youhavetobelievemejaceitwasn'tmeitwasanaccident." How the hell do you accidentally fuck your sister?

"What did you do?" It comes out sounding a lot more menacing then Jace intended and menacing is the last thing Alec needs to hear. "We...we...oh, god we-" He's freaking out, his hands shaking so badly that Jace can see them trembling in the dim light. "I didn't mean to, Jace. She wanted to; I couldn't say no, _I missed her_." The last sentence comes out part sob, part scream and Alec clamps a hand over his own mouth to keep from waking Isabelle, who is still sound asleep.

Jace tries to think of something witty to say, something sarcastic and scathing that'll put some right to the situation but all that comes out is a few faint syllables. Alec sucks in another huge breath. 'bytheangelwhathaveidone?"

.X.

She comes into his room in the middle of the night three days later, stretching out next to him, pressing kisses to the Rune scars along his chest. He wishes he could tell her no but he can't. She's his sister and he loves her and he'll do anything for her, even this, and that's never going to change.

"This won't make things better." He tells her, his voice choked.

She shrugs, pressing her lips to the hollow of his jaw.  
"It sure as hell can't make them any worse."

* * *

FF dot net is being a total wanker about this fic. It kept deleting a bunch of the parentheses, so I had to replace some of them. An unedited version can be found on my Livejournal. It's pretty much the same thing, only with less stickywords. This is a birthday fic for the fantastic tura35! :D So, yes, I FAIL at checking my own work, so if there are any typos, please let me know. :)


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